Mashable

We had about one week to dispose of what we owned, except what we could pack and carry for our departure by bus…for Manzanar.

William Hohri

Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor Dec. 7, 1941, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, empowering the Secretary of War to designate parts of the country as military zones and exclude people from them as he saw fit.

The result: Approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans living on the west coast were rounded up and relocated, forced to abandon their homes, businesses and possessions. Two-thirds were natural born American citizens.

They were “evacuated” to “relocation centers” (polite euphemisms for concentration camps), 10 of which were built across seven western states.

The most notorious camp was Manzanar, built at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountain range 230 miles northeast of Los Angeles.

At its peak, over 10,000 people were interned in the 500-acre camp, enclosed by barbed wire, guard towers and armed military police.

Conditions at the camp were unforgiving. Daytime temperatures could reach 110 degrees, while nights could be freezing. Dust and wind were constant, and the crude barracks provided poor shelter. Within these barracks, each family was allotted a 20-by-25-foot cloth partition.

Most of the internees resolved to make the best of their situation, by attempting to create some semblance of normalcy for their indefinite detention. Some built all the facilities and trappings necessary to maintain a community of 10,000.

The terrain surrounding the relocation camp.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

Internees harvest crops.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

In 1943, legendary photographer Ansel Adams was offered the chance to photograph Manzanar by his friend Ralph Merritt, who ran the camp. He welcomed the chance to document what he considered an outrage. (His family’s longtime employee and friend Harry Oye had been sent to a camp in Missouri.)

While at Manzanar, Adams documented the resiliency and determination of the internees, capturing their daily lives, occupations and pastimes.

The photos were released in a 1944 book which sought to cast those trapped at Manzanar as patriotic Americans waylaid by circumstances beyond their control.

Florence Kuwata practices with batons.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

Kiyo Yoshida, Lillian Wakatsuki and Yoshiko Yamasaki attend a high school biology class.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

There were no crimes committed, no trials, and no convictions: the Japanese Americans were political incarcerees.

Dr. James Hirabayashi

An internee's mementos and keepsakes.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

Service ribbons and qualification badge on the uniform of Corporal Jimmie Shohara.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

Women in a dressmaking class.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

Internees watch a band performance.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

The camp orphanage.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

Children at a Sunday school class.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

High schoolers attend a science lecture.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

Winters at the camp were harsh and cold.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

One of the hardest things to endure was the communal latrines, with no partitions; and showers with no stalls.

Rosie Kakuuchi

A service at the Buddhist temple.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

A Japanese pleasure garden built by internees.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

Mrs. Yaeko Nakamura and her daughters Joyce Yukiko and Louise Tamiko.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

Nothing is more permanent about Manzanar than the dust which has lodged on its tar-papered barracks, except the indelible impression incised on the lives of thousands of its inhabitants.

Ansel Adams

Harry Sumida, a veteran of the Spanish-American war, receives an X-ray from nurse Aiko Hamaguchi and technician Michael Yonemetsu.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

Girls perform calisthenics.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

Aiko Hamaguchi, nurse.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

Roy Takeno (left), reads the newspaper with Yuichi Hirata and Nabou Samamura in front of the Office of Reports Free Press.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

Yonehisa Yamagami, electrician.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

Benji Iguchi with locally grown squash.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

Richard Kobayashi, farmer.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

Mrs. Dennis Shimizu.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

Roy Takeno, right, and the mayor of the camp at a town hall meeting.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

Yemiko Sedohara, secretary.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

Tetsuko Murakami, secretary.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

Hidimi Tayenaka, woodworker.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

Rose Fukuda and Roy Takeda.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

Mori Nakashima feeds chickens.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

A choir group practices singing.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

Girls walk to school in the camp.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

Hidemi Tayenaka, woodworker.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

Michiko Sugawara, stenographer.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

C.T. Hibino, artist.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

Yoshio Muramoto, electrician.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

May Ichide, Sunday school teacher.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

Fumiko Hirata.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

Toyo Miyatake, photographer. He managed to smuggle a lens and film holder into the camp and had a craftsman build him a camera.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

The broad concepts of American citizenship, and of liberal, democratic life the world over, must be protected in the prosecution of the war, and sustained in the building of the peace to come.

Ansel Adams

Internees play volleyball.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

An internee baseball game.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

Internees play soccer in a dusty field.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

Private Margaret Fukuoka, Women's Army Corps.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

Sam Bozono, policeman.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

Teruko Kiyomura, bookkeeper.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

Tom Kobayashi.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

Birds sit on camp telephone wires at sunset.

Image: Ansel Adams/Library of Congress

Manzanar was finally closed and its inhabitants released in November 1945.

One hundred and forty-six internees died while at the camp.

In the 1960s, a movement began among Japanese Americans petitioning the government for redress. In 1988, Congress passed legislation apologizing for the "race prejudice, war hysteria and a failure of political leadership" which caused the internments, and called for the disbursement of reparations to the victims.

The survivors and heirs of survivors ultimately received $1.6 billion as redress for their unconstitutional internment.

A cemetery monument built by internee stonemason Ryozo Kado. The inscription reads "Monument for the Pacification of Spirits."